As summer rush approached, Hagerstown Community College Bookstore Manager Tammy Crockett knew there was a way the store could continue to serve students, keep them safe and give them convenient, one-stop shopping. By holding a drive-up rush event, the store could provide students with everything they might need to start a new term and save them shipping costs.
A strong mobile order fulfillment tool makes it easy for college stores to pick, fill and distribute orders. Online shopping or order pickup will continue to grow as retail evolves to meet customer demands. Your college store needs to be prepared to offer students and customers a seamless online shopping experience with quick and easy shipping or in-store pickup.
The University of Maryland Baltimore County Bookstore has curated a collection of creative events that entice student participation throughout the year. With fun games, giveaways, community-generating sidewalk sales and an incredible convenience shop with a diverse selection, every student can find something in the UMBC Bookstore that inspires them to come back. In February, we sat down with UMBC Bookstore Director Erin McGonigle to discuss how she inspires campus store foot traffic with bookstore events and marketing.
Going into the fall term, it is important to strengthen your position on campus by lowering costs, both for students and the college store. However, how can stores lower costs while maintaining the service and quality customers expect? MBS offers college stores many cost-saving solutions that are also designed to help streamline store operations and elevate the customer experience.
Every year the University of Utah Campus Store holds a large Apple® sale in their store. This year, unable to open the store to customers, they decided to do the next best thing: take the event online. The official order pickup event was held from May 4-8. However, the store began taking preorders three weeks before the official event. The end result: more than $1 million in sales.
College stores have always been able to offer students and the campus community a more personal experience than online competitors. As more shopping moves online due to COVID-19, how can college stores continue to stand apart? The Morehead State University Store emphasizes community and offers a personal touch to online orders that encourages customers to come back again and again.
Looking toward the fall term, many college stores are making plans for multiple possible scenarios they may face. For many, there is still a lot unknown. However, lowering costs as well as saving time and employee resources remains important in every scenario. For this Campus Store Conversation, we invited three college stores to share what they are doing to help lower costs and efficiently manage course materials.
Recently, MBS Field Marketing Territory Manager Beth Gallagher had the opportunity to sit down with UC Davis Stores’ Aaron Ochoa, Director, and Jason Lorgan, Executive Director of Campus Recreation, Student Unions and Stores, to discuss college bookstore industry trends and how their stores work to elevate student experience. So today, we bring you our first MBS Foreword Online podcast, Campus Store Conversations.
Online shoppers expect an easy and seamless shopping experience on your college store website. Part of that is easy navigation. Many shoppers will not devote a lot of time to searching for the brand, color or size before heading to another website. Website filters help ensure customers can easily sort through your merchandise to find exactly what they want.
With college campuses shut down, Spring 2020 buyback and rental returns went into uncharted territory for a lot of stores. The Dixie State University Campus Store came up with a plan to work within these extraordinary circumstances to get the used books and rental returns they depend on each term, and the results were better than they hoped.
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